Developer Creates Iris in 8 Hours: Duplicate of Siri, but for Android

[dgstorm]

A clever team of developers threw together a working alpha of an app dubbed, Iris. This app is designed to be a test of how quickly they could develop an alternative to Siri from the new Apple iOS 5. They culled the various existing Android voice input and text-to-speech capabilities, and coupled it with an online search and added a dash of humor. After initial testing, they realized that their "throw-together" alpha version of Iris still had a lot of bugs and problems, as it frequently misunderstood questions altogether, but they found that Siri got some of the same stuff wrong too in comparison testing.

What's important to take away from this experiment is that Apple can't "sit on their hands" and expect Siri to carry the "voice recognition" torch for too long. If a small team of third party community developers can whip up a workable alpha Android competitor in just eight hours, a dedicated team of paid professionals with a large budget and more time could easily come up with something very competitive. Adding something like it to the plethora of amazing features in Ice Cream Sandwich, you could have a recipe for making Siri look "cheesy" by comparison.

Source: SlashGear

 

[stillwaiting]

haha epic win!

 

[johnomaz]

The version they had in 8 hours was basic and searched WikiPedia for answers. But ya, the tech isn't new or amazing. Apple just has a way of marketing this to seem that way.

 

[Dave12308]

I already have an app installed that is basically "Siri" for Android. It is called "Speaktoit Assistant".

From what i've seen of Siri, this is almost exactly the same. So I don't see how Siri clones on Android are a new thing?

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

I already have an app installed that is basically "Siri" for Android. It is called "Speaktoit Assistant".

From what i've seen of Siri, this is almost exactly the same. So I don't see how Siri clones on Android are a new thing?

Thanks for the heads-up on Speaktoit Assistant. I've tried the others, but this one is now my favorite.

 

[illmatic636]

How is this app being compared to Siri? It's not even close. It's a cool app don't get me wrong, but man, that Siri is very cool.

 

[drew]

I can't get it to answer anything. If I ask a math question, it says "I am sleepy now" or "You are asking too many questions".. I 'm convinced it's just a joke at this point.

 

[akhenax]

i can't get it to answer anything. If i ask a math question, it says "i am sleepy now" or "you are asking too many questions".. I 'm convinced it's just a joke at this point.

L O L ! Yup, that's what a solid 8 hours of work will do for ya. In all fairness, it's still Alpha so....

 

[meagerfindings]

You definitely can tell that it was only 8 hours of work. it is an alpha though, so the main point of downloading out for new was do that when it gets updates I could give it another try

Looks like they just majorly changed the GUI.... gunna give it another try right now

Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums

 

[meagerfindings]

The update is much, much prettier, however, Iris is still only able to serve as an brief entertainment. As mentioned above, she still can't seen to do math either.

Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums

 

[dezymond]

I actually got my friends with it yesterday, said I had an app like Siri.

It was quite funny watching them ask questions and Iris giving little smarty responses

 

[riko540]

Its still in its Alpha phase so you can't expect to much of it. The update that was released today makes it more usable, right now its a prettier version of Voice Search.

 

[z96Cobra]

"Voice Actions" has been available for over a year and does tons of stuff. It can do math, tell jokes, set alarms, call, text.... on and on. It's in the market.

 

[Larry_ThaGr81]

For only 8 hours worth of work, this application is well on its way. However there are more polished Siri-like apps available on the market like Voice Actions and Speaktoit Assistant.

 

[OneTenderRebel]

It's funny how Siri gets released and all of a sudden it's a mad rush from Android users to show they have a similar app. But yet "siri sucks". No one cared at all about voice apps until Apple announced Siri, now all of a sudden every Android user has been using Voice apps for 59 years.

With that being said, I think all voice apps are a little overrated, how often do people really use them? I mean the people who can actually answer honestly.